


love you

by beautifullytragic



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, One Shot, Season 8, Thomas doesn't exist, love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifullytragic/pseuds/beautifullytragic
Summary: "I don't want a repeat of last time, you might get drunk and fall in love with me".
Relationships: Donna Paulsen & Harvey Specter, Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Kudos: 13





	love you

**Author's Note:**

> I had a thought when I read Shannon Barry's book of how her boyfriend first told her he loved her, and my thought kinda ran away on me.
> 
> (This is set in season eight, though let's just pretend Thomas never existed.)

As always, at first the offer of drinks in Harvey's office at the end of the day to celebrate closing a deal they'd had their eyes on for what felt like years, was a good idea. It was fun even – her, Harvey, Louis. Others had toasted with them, clinking their champagne flutes together, words of celebration and laughter zinging through the air – but it always ended up being the three of them in the end. The original team, though their numbers had diminished over the years, the loss of Jessica feeling more like the loss of a whole battalion rather than just one person.

They had stuck to the champagne even once it was just them, which was unusual, but they were celebrating. Donna's fingers clench around her glass as she swayed to the soft music coming from the record player, her other hand fingering through the record collection on the wall. Louis and Harvey were having a conversation about something, her head was slightly too buzzed to even want to pay attention to what they were saying.

"Donna", a nudge at her elbow brought her back to the moment, and she turned, her eyes taking a moment to register Louis' face, "Think it's time for someone's bedtime", he said, nodding his head towards the couch, Harvey slumped lower than usual, eyes half-closed.

She smirked slightly, draining her glass of liquid, "I'll take care of that. Goodnight, Louis".

He smiled and squeezed her forearm, before turning to leave, his goodnight bidding to Harvey earning him a muffled response from behind one of the couch cushions.

Sighing softly, she walked towards him, holding out a hand for him to grab, "Your carriage awaits m'lord"

It was remarkably easy to get him upright and downstairs into his car, easier than she had anticipated it to be. As soon as Ray had pulled off from the curb, Harvey shifted in the backseat, his head lolling to the side and coming to rest on her shoulder. She opened her to mouth to say something, but the sight of him, eyes closed, breathing softly, caused her to close it again and just turn towards her window, a small smile pushing at the corners of her mouth.

She knew she had jinxed herself as they made it to his door, getting him out of the car and upstairs and to locate his key in his pocket had proved a lot more difficult, and she was glad by that time, any wooziness she was feeling back at the office had very quickly worn off as soon as she had someone else to look after.

Stumbling in through his front door, she grabbed him by the elbow to steady him.

"I'm fine, Donna", he mumbled, directing his speech towards the floor, "I just need to sleep", and he took a few steps towards his couch before he pulled on his arm,

"You are _way_ too old to sleep all night on that thing Harvey, your back will hate you in the morning. Think you could make it to bed if I grab you a glass of water?"

He nodded slightly and she tentatively let go of his arm, one eye on him as he staggered away and made her way to his kitchen, finding a glass as quickly as if the kitchen was her own. Sourcing some aspirin took a little while longer, though she hadn't heard any loud crashing sounds coming from the bedroom, she assumed he wasn't causing too much trouble.

Rounding the corner to his room, she paused in the doorway. His shoes, jacket and tie were in a pile at the foot of his bed, and that was all. He lay on his back on top of the covers, a hand covering his eyes against the chink of light that was coming in from the kitchen.

"Here", she murmured as she placed the tablets and glass on his nightstand, lowering herself on the edge of the bed, most of her weight being held by her legs and not on the mattress. Her fingers ghosted the side of his face, running from his right temple to his jaw, "You drank a lot tonight", she whispered, her voice so low she wasn't sure even if he could hear it, "what's going on with you…"

She was sure he had fallen asleep, the only indication he hadn't was that his hand hadn't fallen from his eyes. She was about to stand when he dropped it, his eyes seeking hers in the dark and her hand stilled on his cheek. She tried to offer him a small smile in the dark, though how well he could see, she wasn't sure.

"Donna", he mumbled, his eyes moving from hers to the room, unfocused.

"Get some rest", she hummed, standing now.

She was almost out of the room when she heard it, so soft as though it was some sort of dream. But she knew it wasn't, she knew it wasn't because her head was starting to pound slightly from all the fizz earlier, and the balls of her feet were screaming at her from her shoes, and neither of those things happen in her dreams. But those words, so quiet in the still night of his bedroom, which whispered "Love you", was something that did happen, in her dreams sometimes and now, in reality. She stopped, and twisted her head around, but his eyes were closed again, his chest rising and falling deeper and she knew he was out. Shaking her head slightly, she carried on walking, switching off the kitchen light as she left his apartment.

-

It's almost ten in the morning before she sees him next, a quiet knock in the doorway and she looks up from her laptop, her eyebrows raised when she sees him

"Well, good morning rock star, how are _you_ this morning?"

He rolls his eyes slightly, holding his palm up at her in a silent plea for her to stop talking. He strides forward and all but falls back in to the chair across from her. "How's your head?" she asks, picking a pen up absentmindedly, an amused smile on her face.

"Not good", he grunts, his eyes squinting slightly in the sunlight streaming in from behind her. "I wanted to talk to you about something"

She raised an eye and tilted her head, her nail clicking down one of the colours on the top of her pen.

"I have this feeling I said something last night, that was a bit untoward, and I just wanted to say I don't mean to-"

His eyes meet hers across the desk, and she briefly contemplates playing dumb and asking him to elaborate but she knows that won't do any good, just like it didn't the last time. It was far too early in the day, and he was too hungover, and she had too much work to get through for a whole _love-me-how_ debacle.

"It's fine Harvey", she leans towards him, her tone even as she rests her elbows on the table. "I didn't hear a thing."

She's lying. And she knows it. And he knows it.

He swallows, standing slowly, his eyes not breaking away from hers. "As long as it isn't awkward…"

She shrugs and shakes her head, "Not at all".

With a nod, he turns to leave, pausing only when he reaches the door, his hand coming to rest on the glass. He looks back at her for a beat, before tapping the glass softly and walking out.

Exhaling she leaned back in her chair. She was banking on him not remembering, which clearly wasn't the case.

All she knew was last time he had told her he loved her, it had set a catastrophic train in motion that seemed to have a mind of its own and had decided to run off the tracks. She had hoped after everything the last few years, that they were finally on the right track again, that there was something happening. She saw it in the way his eyes softened when they sought hers out, whether it was in a room full of people or just them two. The way his hand pressed on her lower back as he handed her a glass of whiskey at the end of the day as she stood together, looking out at the city below them in his office. Something was happening, was changing, and she had started to think about what it all meant for them, for her.

He had always been someone that she admired, respected, thought of as her best friend. Love wasn't something she had ever associated with him, but looking back she could see it was always there. Every joke, every late night that she helped him with a case, which definitely wasn't her job description, every shopping trip, every call after midnight to talk about something that was keeping him awake. Loving him hadn't been something that had been there from the start with them, it had been something growing silently in her. The realisation of that love though, had knocked her a little. And she had spent a long time distracting herself from it, with work, with boyfriends, certain that the only way to live with her loving him was simply through distraction. There was no unloving him, she didn't think it was in her being to do it. He was in her, in a way she couldn't explain, he was in every breath, in every decision she made, in every thought that went through her head, and what killed her a little is that it wasn't even a conscious existence. She didn't want him there, living in her, she wanted to go and live a normal life, and maybe meet someone and get married and have a family, and a life. A life that had nothing to do with Harvey Specter, which sounded to her just as impossible as someone telling her they saw a fish riding a unicycle in the lobby.

The thought of him loving her back, was something she had tried very hard, a long time ago to not think about. Surely it can't mean anything more than it did when he said it all those years ago. _Love you._ As a friend. Right? Like how she loves Rachel, or says she loves the barista when he adds an extra pump of caramel in her drink, or how she said I love you to the girl who pointed out that her tag was sticking out of her coat the other morning.

Her head is spinning.

No, she thinks, with a shake of her head, this doesn't change anything. They're friends now, there had been a long time when they weren't speaking, or he was with Paula that she had wished for them to be back to where they were. And now they were, so there was absolutely nothing she was going to do to mess all that up again.

A few weeks go by and they fall back to normal, or whatever normal is for them. She thinks he's almost forgotten about what he said, but there are some moments, some flirty comments and looks from across his office when they're having a drink, or when she catches him staring at her as she chooses a record to play, that she is just certain isn't strictly friendly. Ball is in his court now, she's decided, and she made the move the last time- disastrous as it was, so it now lies with him. Though she knows waiting on Harvey to be ready to really show any type of commitment to her could potentially be like waiting for rainfall in the desert.

Another Friday night rolls around, and she's sat on at the end of his couch, her feet crossed at the ankles, resting on the edge of his coffee table. Humming softly to the faint jazz that's playing, she drinks the last sip of her whiskey.

"Another?" he asks, already reaching down for her empty glass. She shakes her head, already feeling a little floaty. She leans her head back and closes her eyes. "I have to stay alert for when you drink too much and need to be chaperoned home"

He chuckles, already pouring one for himself. She hums along to the tune, feeling so relaxed but also on edge at the same time. Drinking always seems like it will help her forget things, but it usually works in the completely opposite way. Her thoughts are buzzing in her head, mixing with the alcohol and she thinks, she could just say something. She could. She doesn't know why she does, it just half-forms in her head and before she knows it,

"You sure about that?" she asks, opening one eye and seeing his glass half raised to his lips. He takes a sip and raises one eyebrow in question.

She opens her other eye, and catches his, resting her head to the side. "I don't want a repeat of last time, you might get drunk and fall in love with me".

There's a silence that falls over them, the sound of the record playing fading to quiet as his eyes bore into hers over the rim of his glass, and she doesn't pull hers away. She waits him out, feeling her cheeks burn slightly but not moving her gaze from him. He blinks away first, scoffing into his glass. He comes to sit beside her on the couch, resting his free hand between them, a hair fraction away from where hers is laying.

Something in her gut pulls her towards moving her little finger even just a little closer to his, something that seems to be trying to cut through the cloudiness of her brain, shouting he didn't say no, didn't change the subject. She tries to ignore the sudden hope she feels unfurling in her chest, about how much she already wishes he was. Or how much she wants him to be.


End file.
